A Wild Card Race With a First-Year Rebuild: A Baseball Operations Approach to the Surprising 2026 Washington Nationals FROM THE DESK OF BASEBALL OPERATIONS I’ve written this as if from inside the Nationals’ baseball operations group: my read on a surprising season and the approach I would take into the August 3 deadline. My recommendation is to act as a disciplined buyer, adding controllable talent instead of two-month rentals, using the club’s rare payroll room as leverage,